I never quite got the Mom thing out of my system. With two adult daughters living on their own, I'm now Mom to the World's Greatest Dog, named after Wendell Berry and the Essay in Berry Street.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Is This the Face That Launched a Thousand Ships?

Dear Diary – It’s been a long time since I’ve written, but I’ve been busy. You know -- start-up of the church year, getting ready for sabbatical, going on sabbatical, travel in foreign lands, hot air balloons. Like that. Oh, and getting a puppy.

Lordy, lordy, what ever possessed us to say yes to the offer of a puppy? (A free purebred Labrador Retriever – how could we say no?) And how did we ever live without her? Friends, let me introduce you to Maya. In keeping with the poet theme (Berry is named after Wendell Berry), we chose the name Maya because she is a black female. Maya is now 3 ½ months old, utterly un-house trained, a wild banshee much of the time when she is awake, but so cute when she’s asleep. (Does this remind you of having children?)

Berry walked around stiff-legged for several days when she arrived at the end of August, pretending she didn’t exist by looking the other way. But she adores him, and persists in kissing him over and over until he either relents and starts playing with her, or growls at her to let her know enough is enuf. He is going through a second puppyhood, suddenly chewing on sticks and playing with toys that he has ignored for years. The house is littered with dog toys, and with ripped up bits of god-only-knows-what. I’d be lying to say that the vacuum cleaner is doing double-duty; fact is, we are living in an incredibly messy house.

Today was Wastebasket Day At The Parsonage. You don’t really want to know what was in our wastebaskets; even less do you want to see it all over the carpet in my home office, or find it underfoot when you walk through our kitchen. Neither do we. But when she scampers past with something in her mouth that we’re pretty sure shouldn’t be there, we have no choice but to laugh, drop everything and follow her. Usually it’s too late.

If you want to be re-introduced to Joy, get a puppy.

More to follow, about lots of subjects. Hey, I’m on sabbatical for another six weeks, and I want to tell you about traveling in Greece and Turkey, and taking a balloon ride at sunrise in the next county to here. One of my sabbatical projects is to get back up to speed on the blog. Stay tuned.